Waaasssssuuppp! A lot has happened since my last post, my apologies for not keeping you all updated!
So. I left off after the crazy trip from D.C.. We didn't get our luggage for three days. And, of course, I didn't pack a carry-on, so I was wearing the same clothes for three days. I smelled like it too. It made me appreciate my clothes SO MUCH MORE when I finally got them, much thanks to Stefe! (There is no sound for a "v" in Arabic, so Arabic speakers replace the "v" sound with the "f" sound.)
I've probably eaten about five pounds of rice and curry since I've been here, so..... I have nothing to complain about! There is a lot of different cuisine here (Indian, Lebanese, Omani, Thai, etc.) and we get to choose what we want for dinner every night. Livin' the dream! So, as far as food goes, this trip rates on top.
Oh yeah, side note: Five girls have gone to the hospital since we've been here, and I haven't been one of them! *Knock on wood*
We started Arabic classes three days ago. I now know the Arabic alphabet, and some words and phrases. It's funny because a lot of words in Arabic sound a lot like American curse words. So when one of my teachers says some word in Arabic, I kinda laugh, then they ask each girl in the room to repeat the word they just said. So by the end of it, I've heard the word "/fuqr/" meaning "poverty" nine times, and everyone in the room is cracking up except for my Arabic teacher. One more thing about Arabic which is kind of depressing: Omani Arabic is different from Egyptian Arabic which is different from Moroccan Arabic which is different from Jordanian Arabic. Almost every Arab nation has very distinct dialects, so if I learn Omani Arabic and then try to go speak that in Egypt, I'll have a hard time being understood. Everyone uses MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) in newspapers and broadcasts, but I've heard that's more difficult to learn than the local dialects.
Fifteen girls living together for three weeks.... Hmmmm.... That's a lot of estrogen. I'm just hoping the claws don't come out by the end of our stay at the Midan Hotel. Our poor residential coordinator Hannah has been acting as the fill-in mother of fifteen teenage girls. Whatta stud. It takes a VERY special person to take on that job.
We had a tour of Musqat the other day. We got to see this hotel that was one of the most luxurious in the Middle East-- we're talking thousands of dollars a night. It was crazy. They didn't even want us to take pictures of it. But they served us qahua (coffee) and I felt really elegant. We saw Sultan Qaboos's palace, and it looked like a castle you would see in Candyland. It was super vibrant colors with this Middle Eastern architecture. Here's a picture...
Tomorrow we are going to Salalah, a smaller city in the southern part of Oman called Dhofar. Salalah is kind of like Tucson in that it has a monsoon season in the summer, so it's green, lush, misty, and cool. It'll be a nice break from the heat of Musqat. People in Salalah also speak a different language that's much closer to Hebrew and Aramaic. It's interesting to think about how all these different languages spoken throughout Oman (there's more than four in Musqat alone) evolved into what they are today. We're going down there while a festival is going on celebrating the khareef (monsoon season), which is so exciting. I'll let you guys know how it is, but I'm sure it's gonna be amazing. Also, I heard there's this hill in Salalah that supposedly is a magnetic enigma, where if you put your car in neutral, it will roll up the hill. I hope we're able to visit that.
All in all, the trip has been amazing thus far. I'm looking forward to living with my host family (I have an eighteen year old host sister and and two and half year old host brother!) and the different experiences that'll come along with that.
One more thought for the road: the majority Omani teenagers do NOT have strong friendships with the opposite gender, so they don't really understand when some of us say that our good friends are guys. It's either marriage or bust, I guess.
Picture of the sea by the Muscat souq (market). Photo cred to Ariel Valentina.
Picture of some new friends and I at the Access program, which is a program that teaches English to underprivileged Omanis.
So. I left off after the crazy trip from D.C.. We didn't get our luggage for three days. And, of course, I didn't pack a carry-on, so I was wearing the same clothes for three days. I smelled like it too. It made me appreciate my clothes SO MUCH MORE when I finally got them, much thanks to Stefe! (There is no sound for a "v" in Arabic, so Arabic speakers replace the "v" sound with the "f" sound.)
I've probably eaten about five pounds of rice and curry since I've been here, so..... I have nothing to complain about! There is a lot of different cuisine here (Indian, Lebanese, Omani, Thai, etc.) and we get to choose what we want for dinner every night. Livin' the dream! So, as far as food goes, this trip rates on top.
Oh yeah, side note: Five girls have gone to the hospital since we've been here, and I haven't been one of them! *Knock on wood*
We started Arabic classes three days ago. I now know the Arabic alphabet, and some words and phrases. It's funny because a lot of words in Arabic sound a lot like American curse words. So when one of my teachers says some word in Arabic, I kinda laugh, then they ask each girl in the room to repeat the word they just said. So by the end of it, I've heard the word "/fuqr/" meaning "poverty" nine times, and everyone in the room is cracking up except for my Arabic teacher. One more thing about Arabic which is kind of depressing: Omani Arabic is different from Egyptian Arabic which is different from Moroccan Arabic which is different from Jordanian Arabic. Almost every Arab nation has very distinct dialects, so if I learn Omani Arabic and then try to go speak that in Egypt, I'll have a hard time being understood. Everyone uses MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) in newspapers and broadcasts, but I've heard that's more difficult to learn than the local dialects.
Fifteen girls living together for three weeks.... Hmmmm.... That's a lot of estrogen. I'm just hoping the claws don't come out by the end of our stay at the Midan Hotel. Our poor residential coordinator Hannah has been acting as the fill-in mother of fifteen teenage girls. Whatta stud. It takes a VERY special person to take on that job.
We had a tour of Musqat the other day. We got to see this hotel that was one of the most luxurious in the Middle East-- we're talking thousands of dollars a night. It was crazy. They didn't even want us to take pictures of it. But they served us qahua (coffee) and I felt really elegant. We saw Sultan Qaboos's palace, and it looked like a castle you would see in Candyland. It was super vibrant colors with this Middle Eastern architecture. Here's a picture...
Tomorrow we are going to Salalah, a smaller city in the southern part of Oman called Dhofar. Salalah is kind of like Tucson in that it has a monsoon season in the summer, so it's green, lush, misty, and cool. It'll be a nice break from the heat of Musqat. People in Salalah also speak a different language that's much closer to Hebrew and Aramaic. It's interesting to think about how all these different languages spoken throughout Oman (there's more than four in Musqat alone) evolved into what they are today. We're going down there while a festival is going on celebrating the khareef (monsoon season), which is so exciting. I'll let you guys know how it is, but I'm sure it's gonna be amazing. Also, I heard there's this hill in Salalah that supposedly is a magnetic enigma, where if you put your car in neutral, it will roll up the hill. I hope we're able to visit that.
All in all, the trip has been amazing thus far. I'm looking forward to living with my host family (I have an eighteen year old host sister and and two and half year old host brother!) and the different experiences that'll come along with that.
One more thought for the road: the majority Omani teenagers do NOT have strong friendships with the opposite gender, so they don't really understand when some of us say that our good friends are guys. It's either marriage or bust, I guess.
Picture of the sea by the Muscat souq (market). Photo cred to Ariel Valentina.
Picture of some new friends and I at the Access program, which is a program that teaches English to underprivileged Omanis.
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